Guess Who Forgot to Tell Trump He
Was Pausing Ukraine Aid?
Pete Hegseth forgot a crucial step.
Andrew
Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
The
president is not in control of his own government.
Last
week’s sudden pause on a weapons shipment to Ukraine was the handiwork of
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—who didn’t bother to inform the president before
enacting it, five sources familiar with the situation told CNN. Practically everyone
was blindsided by news of the halted shipment, including
the White House, the State Department, Congress, Kyiv, and America’s European
allies, setting off a mad dash within the administration to explain the
unexpected directive.
Donald
Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he was “not
responsible” for the canceled shipment, telling the war-battered leader that he
had directed a review of U.S. stockpiles but did not order the freeze,
according to sources that spoke with The Guardian. The
president reiterated that point
during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, telling reporters that he didn’t know who
authorized the move.
It’s
not the first time that Hegseth has intervened in U.S. foreign policy without
Trump’s express approval: In February, the Pentagon chief executed the same
flub, pausing a weapons shipment to Ukraine despite the fact that Trump had
announced the flow would continue.
Two
of the sources that spoke with CNN claimed that Hegseth’s poor planning was in
part due to the boiling drama around him at the Pentagon. With no chief of
staff or trusted advisers, Hegseth is making major policy decisions solo.
The
decision to cancel the shipment was grounded in the Pentagon’s global munitions
tracker, The Guardian reported Tuesday. The tracker had
highlighted that a number of critical munitions had fallen below a minimum
readiness standard for several years, at least since President Joe Biden began
sending weapons to assist Ukraine in its war against Russia. But senior
military officials and Democratic lawmakers have insisted that there’s no
evidence that America’s munitions supply would warrant peeling back support
from Ukraine.
Pentagon
press secretary Kingsley Wilson told CNN that “Secretary Hegseth provided a
framework for the president to evaluate military aid shipments and assess
existing stockpiles.”
“This
effort was coordinated across government,” Wilson told the network.
White
House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump still has “full
confidence” in his defense secretary.
